He goes into the kitchen and tells everyone to put a lid on it, but no one’s listening. The wind feels like it’s trying to get inside, banging on gates and slamming doors, prising back the roof one tile at a time and that rain does not stop. A lightning bolt slits open clouds that have been saving up their rain for years. Crack! Thunder booms and the power goes. Shrieks of excitement then worry as people try to find their way around. ‘Dave, you got Nari?’
‘Hey, Kez, watch the steps there. Go slow.’
Then I hear the rain say, ‘Look kid, this is it. Go now or it may be too late.’
The house is creaking like it can’t hold its weight anymore and I run without thinking, away from the shouting and screaming. A pole from the tarpaulin smashes through the kitchen window. Then there’s nothing but panicked voices: ‘Get down! Where is he? Come on, no leave it. I’ve got you!’
My feet are taking me to the only place I can think of. It’s not ready. Half-painted and probably leaky, but I know it will move now, out into the channel and down to the sea. The rain is right; this could be my only chance so I have to be brave. I’ve forgotten my shoes and something spikes my foot. A sharp breath in, but I run on. Through the mangroves, thinking maybe I will get stuck here and drown like the horse in The Neverending Story. The mud is thick and it pulls my feet down with every step, but I stumble on. Until I’m at the boat.
I talk to myself so I don’t feel like I’m alone. Put my hands on either side of the bow. Push. Slip and hit the side of my cheek, a dull thud in time with my heartbeat. I’m up again and hear a low grunt, frightening until I realise it is me moving that boat out and into the rising water.
Maman, je te ramène à la maison!
I hear Mum sing her favourite Françoise Hardy song, ‘Le temps de l’amour’. How I’ve waited to hear her voice! We’ll sail across the sea faster than anyone ever thought possible. But then she is gone because the wind has grown spiteful and stolen her voice away. I throw all my weight into my arms and push the boat forward. Leaves and branches whip my face, dirty air slams into my eyes so that I can only squint. The boat feels heavy like a marble statue.
Taken by my struggle, God decides to intervene. I push again, and the boat slides forward, light as a feather. I hop in and the water floats the rowboat into the channel.
Can hardly see for all the needle rain hitting me in the face but I know he’s coming. Got a ninth sense about Joni: one-third more than usual.
And when I look back, there he is running through the mangroves with Augie Belle tight under one arm.
The water is watching and it wants to play a game. I hear a whisper travel across its surface until it’s close enough to hear: ‘You cannot have me if I cannot have the boy.’
Before I can stop him Joni jumps straight into the water and disappears underneath. He’s too little to know this night sea has a black heart.
I jump out of the boat and swim under the water all on one breath, reach out and grab his foot; tangled by the reeds that think it’s all a game too.
Quick! His lungs are small and about to burst.
Finally I drag him up to the surface. Then he’s like a newborn and I am tortured until a gasping splutter brings him back into the world.
We collapse on the bank letting our desperate lungs fill up with air. In this moment there’s only me and him, arms and legs wrapped around trying to crawl inside one another. The storm is so ferocious all the trees want to escape too, falling over this way and that, branches cracking loudly. They fall so close I feel a twig catch the side of my face so I pick Joni up and we scramble through the falling forest.
The path has gone and I can’t tell if I’m heading in the right direction. I think I see the house, a large shadow in the distance and figures calling our names. So I do not see what is coming and maybe the tree is already asleep before it hits the ground but it takes me with it.
Back of the head, crack like a cricket ball hit for six.
I fall onto my knees so I don’t squish Joni. There’s no pain so I must be all right even though there’s a golf-ball lump on the back of my head. I touch it and then look at my hand. Covered in red. That magic water inside my body is leaking out, and when I see all that blood, I just can’t be brave anymore.
I hear that wolf of mine yell at me: ‘This is what you get for trying to steal a child away!’
Now the ocean won’t set us free. It will keep me here so I can be punished.
Maman, aide-moi!
That is the last thing I say before I die.
29 Chickpea
They say it was a once-in-a-decade storm. William’s house was a wreck; seven windows broken and half the roof missing. Ended up in the neighbour’s pool two doors down. I don’t know where I went for the next three months. The clock kept ticking over but someone had forgotten to wind me up. There’s a throat tube to help me breathe and my brain’s been switched off so I can heal. Every day another medical forecast. She might wake up, she might keep sleeping. Or you might turn the machine off and let her go forever. Even though I couldn’t understand what they said, I knew they were there. In the morning it would be William. He would read to me. I could hear the pages turn and his soft steady voice. In the afternoon Aunty Cecilia and Jules would take turns like they’d popped over for arvo tea to tell me how the tomatoes were doing this year. Sometimes they would cry. Then they would keep talking because that’s what the doctors had told them to do. To let me know I wasn’t alone. And one time Pat was there too. Didn’t say much but he stayed for the longest time. Then the room got cold and I went down deeper into myself.
After a while even though my eyes were shut I could see shapes: blobs of light and shadows when the sun flickered across the window. One day I feel William hold my hand and stroke my fingers. I could feel again. Like hands are a new invention and the doctors have just strapped one on. People don’t sound like they’re talking underwater anymore. I can hear William’s words the clearest, he tells me stories. They’re mostly the ones he tells Joni, but I don’t mind. One is about a spider-man. Not the red and black one who’s really Peter Parker. This one’s called Anansi. Some people call him Mr Nancy and that makes me laugh even though my mouth can’t move. Mr Nancy makes the rain come and decides how wide the rivers can flood. He makes it all possible: the sun, moon, stars, day and night. I squeeze William’s hand. Then hear his chair scrape as he runs out of the room. People come in and speak my name. People I don’t know and do not want to see so I stay inside myself. I don’t know if it’s two minutes, hours, or days later, but the next time William takes my hand I open my eyes because his is the face I want to see for the first time again. So I’d know I hadn’t died after all.
He just stares at me with wonder and wobbly eyes.
‘Chickpea.’ The inside of my mouth is dry and the word feels wooden.
William’s shadow falls over my face as he leans forward, eyes wide open. ‘I couldn’t hear you, bubby,’ he whispers so my ears don’t crack.
‘Channa…means chickpea,’ I say.
And then his eyes go all crinkly like they’re gonna fall in on themselves.
‘You’re my channa.’ Massaging my hand again, he’s smoothing out the fleshy spot right at the base of the thumb.